Da­reece Po­lo

Re­port­ing from Brus­sels, Bel­gium

Trinidad and To­ba­go and af­fect­ed ter­ri­to­ries in the wider Caribbean re­gion are once again be­ing urged to main­tain a fair and trans­par­ent tax sys­tem to un­lock deep­er trade ties and job-cre­at­ing in­vest­ments from the Eu­ro­pean Union.

The mes­sage comes from Niels Geuk­ing, a Ger­man Mem­ber of the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment and a mem­ber of the Del­e­ga­tion to the Car­i­fo­rum-EU Par­lia­men­tary Com­mit­tee.

Geuk­ing, who rep­re­sents the Group of the Eu­ro­pean Peo­ple’s Par­ty (Chris­t­ian De­moc­rats), clar­i­fied that he was speak­ing in a per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty, as in­di­vid­ual mem­bers of the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment can­not speak on be­half of the EU bloc.

He made the can­did re­marks dur­ing an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment in Brus­sels yes­ter­day.

“We need a fair tax sys­tem in the whole world. We can­not ex­plain to peo­ple in the EU that we fight for fair­ness at home, and then part­ner with coun­tries that don’t meet the same min­i­mum stan­dards,” Geuk­ing said.

Speak­ing di­rect­ly about T&T, which re­mains on the EU’s tax black­list, ini­tial­ly pub­lished in De­cem­ber 2017, Geuk­ing stressed that while the EU is open to part­ner­ships and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, ac­cess to in­vest­ment and job op­por­tu­ni­ties de­pends on trans­paren­cy and co-op­er­a­tion.

“When we have a fair tax sys­tem, then we can say to our com­pa­nies, ‘Yes, in­vest in Trinidad,’” he added. “And when Eu­ro­pean com­pa­nies in­vest, they don’t bring in Eu­ro­pean work­ers. They in­vest in ed­u­cat­ing and em­ploy­ing lo­cal peo­ple. That’s a sus­tain­able, long-term part­ner­ship.”

T&T con­tin­ues to be list­ed as a “non-co-op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tion for tax pur­pos­es”, de­spite the pas­sage of sev­er­al key leg­isla­tive mea­sures. These in­clude the Com­pa­nies (Amend­ment) Act, the In­come Tax (Amend­ment) Act, the Mu­tu­al Ad­min­is­tra­tive As­sis­tance in Tax Mat­ters Act (MAAC), and the Tax In­for­ma­tion Ex­change Agree­ments Act (TIEA).

The coun­try was black­list­ed due to re­ceiv­ing a non-com­pli­ant rat­ing from the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-op­er­a­tion and De­vel­op­ment’s Glob­al Fo­rum un­der two key in­ter­na­tion­al tax trans­paren­cy stan­dards: Ex­change of In­for­ma­tion on Re­quest (EOIR) and Au­to­mat­ic Ex­change of In­for­ma­tion (AEOI).

In re­sponse, the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion passed the Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force Com­pli­ance Bill (FATF) in the Low­er House last year to ad­dress leg­isla­tive gaps re­lat­ed to an­ti-mon­ey laun­der­ing, coun­tert­er­ror­ism fi­nanc­ing, and non-pro­lif­er­a­tion.

More­over, prime min­is­ters across the Caribbean have strong­ly crit­i­cised the EU’s ap­proach, ar­gu­ing that the black­list un­fair­ly pe­nalis­es small economies that are not, in prac­tice, tax havens.

The Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion re­vised the black­list in Feb­ru­ary 2025, with T&T re­main­ing among 11 ju­ris­dic­tions still list­ed. The next re­view is ex­pect­ed in Oc­to­ber 2025, when progress, or lack there­of, on these re­forms will be eval­u­at­ed again.

Geuk­ing ac­knowl­edged the leg­isla­tive strides tak­en so far. “If the ef­forts are enough, there’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the Com­mis­sion to change its mind,” he said.

Caribbean needs flex­i­bil­i­ty
on EU tax rules—Bharath

How­ev­er, for­mer min­is­ter in the fi­nance min­istry Vas­ant Bharath con­tend­ed that small is­land de­vel­op­ing states (SIDS) face sig­nif­i­cant hur­dles which ob­struct ef­forts to­wards the EU’s push for a “fair and trans­par­ent tax sys­tem”.

“The de­mand for align­ment with OECD rules on cor­po­rate tax­a­tion, an­ti-mon­ey laun­der­ing, and fi­nan­cial dis­clo­sure places re­al stress on ju­ris­dic­tions that have his­tor­i­cal­ly used com­pet­i­tive tax pol­i­cy as a lever to at­tract glob­al cap­i­tal. As the OECD it­self has ac­knowl­edged, low-tax regimes re­main a key in­stru­ment for many Caribbean states to bring in much-need­ed for­eign in­vest­ment,” he said.

“Yet the EU’s black­list of ‘non-co­op­er­a­tive tax ju­ris­dic­tions’, which in­cludes Trinidad and To­ba­go, ap­pears to dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly tar­get small and un­der-re­sourced coun­tries—while con­spic­u­ous­ly ex­clud­ing Eu­ro­pean ter­ri­to­ries with ques­tion­able tax prac­tices of their own,” he added.

Bharath ar­gued that this breeds frus­tra­tion and un­der­mines the le­git­i­ma­cy of the process in the eyes of many with­in the re­gion.

He said that com­ply­ing with these rules car­ries re­al costs, not just in fi­nan­cial terms, but al­so in terms of in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty.

“It can mean re­duced rev­enue from in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness ser­vices, and for small­er states, that can se­vere­ly lim­it de­vel­op­ment op­tions.”

He ad­mit­ted that, on the con­trary, these stan­dards can un­lock sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­men­tal sup­port—from sus­tain­able fi­nance to green tech­nol­o­gy trans­fers—that can boost in­vestor con­fi­dence and lay the ground­work for long-term eco­nom­ic re­silience.

Bharath said the Caribbean should take steps to cap­i­talise on a part­ner­ship with the EU to at­tract cap­i­tal, build out re­new­able en­er­gy in­fra­struc­tures and re­form key eco­nom­ic sec­tors.

“In ex­change for deep­er in­te­gra­tion, we should push for flex­i­bil­i­ty: phased im­ple­men­ta­tion of tax and car­bon rules, tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance, and tar­get­ed carve-outs where need­ed. At the same time, we must work re­gion­al­ly to pool re­sources, har­monise stan­dards, and re­duce com­pli­ance costs.”

He urged the Gov­ern­ment to con­tin­ue press­ing for “com­mon but dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ties” in cli­mate and tax gov­er­nance at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el. He said these prin­ci­ples re­flect his­tor­i­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and lim­it­ed ca­pac­i­ties. Crit­i­cal­ly, the fi­nan­cial ex­pert said any re­form must in­clude a strong so­cial di­men­sion.

“We must en­sure that work­ers in tra­di­tion­al sec­tors are re­trained and sup­port­ed. If we are to speak of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, it must be one that de­liv­ers op­por­tu­ni­ty and dig­ni­ty to our peo­ple.”

Row­ley: Stop mov­ing goal­post

Asked to weigh in, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who crit­i­cised the EU’s black­list in the past, said, “All we ask is that they stop mov­ing the goal­post!!”

TTRA re­peal a set­back, says Nunez-Tesheira

Mean­while, for­mer min­is­ter of fi­nance Karen Nunez-Tesheira has strong­ly crit­i­cised the re­peal of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA), call­ing it a “step back­wards” in ef­forts to im­prove tax com­pli­ance and fi­nan­cial trans­paren­cy.

Speak­ing in the con­text of T&T’s con­tin­ued black­list­ing, Nunez-Tesheira ar­gued that leg­is­la­tion with­out en­force­ment is in­suf­fi­cient, and the dis­man­tling of the TTRA re­flects a deep­er lack of po­lit­i­cal will to ad­dress tax eva­sion mean­ing­ful­ly.

“Let’s just use the ex­am­ple of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty, which was re­pealed with­in a mat­ter of two months by this cur­rent Gov­ern­ment. When I was the min­is­ter at the time and we got it passed through the Low­er House, the haem­or­rhag­ing in terms of tax eva­sion was put at least 10 bil­lion dol­lars. So, we’re talk­ing about the high-in­come earn­ers, and we’re talk­ing about the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. So that’s an in­di­ca­tion that some­thing is dras­ti­cal­ly wrong.”

Nunez-Tesheira al­so cit­ed a Privy Coun­cil rul­ing that af­firmed the TTRA would not un­der­mine con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions for pub­lic ser­vants. In­stead, it con­clud­ed that the se­mi-au­tonomous struc­ture could en­hance in­de­pen­dence by shield­ing rev­enue of­fi­cers from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

She point­ed out that the cur­rent struc­ture un­der the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion lacks flex­i­bil­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty, mak­ing tax en­force­ment dif­fi­cult. En­force­ment is­sues, not just laws on pa­per, are what mat­ter to in­ter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­tors, she said.

The for­mer min­is­ter ref­er­enced Ja­maica as a re­gion­al ex­am­ple of best prac­tice, point­ing to that coun­try’s in­de­pen­dent over­sight in­sti­tu­tions and sim­pli­fied reg­u­la­to­ry process­es. In con­trast, she ar­gued, T&T suf­fers from un­der-re­sourced agen­cies, en­trenched bu­reau­cra­cy, and a lack of po­lit­i­cal will.

“Pass­ing laws is not enough,” she said. “Im­ple­men­ta­tion and vis­i­ble re­sults are what tru­ly count.”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo for com­ment, but up to late yes­ter­day, there was no re­sponse.